No Afterglow

Lightning breathes a thunder
A wind on his back

The past his only shelter
The walls, torn and cracked

‘I can’t last through another’
He pleads to the sky

He’s locked down in the gutter
Watching birds
As they fly, above

No afterglow
From a lone, broken soul

He lays there, cold and covered
In the rain, sick and tired

Helpless, void of something
Dry, to stoke the fire

Nights end, with a morning 
And a prayer
But no reply, no

No afterglow

He lays there, cold and covered
In the dirt, far from home

No tears from a mother
Just a space on a stone

For the name, unrecovered
Of a son
Who has died, alone